The Royal Commission into institutionalised child abuse in Australia has, for the first time since the Catholic Church, included other faith-based organisations within its exploratory gaze. Case number 21 focused on Satyananda Yoga. During the 1970s and 1980s, children were systematically abused at the Satyananda Yoga ashram just north of Sydney, Australia. This abuse was rationalised and excused as being an essential part of the ‘core Indian values’ passed down through the guru-disciple tradition that was a gift to those children fortunate enough to have their spiritual evolution occur at a faster pace than the less fortunate children who were not abused. Through the context of discussing ‘core Indian values’ at the heart of Hindutva’s argument that ‘rape does not occur in Bharat, only India’, this article continues by exploring the contest over commodifying what constitutes legitimate ‘yoga’ as Narendra Modi has asserted yoga is ‘India’s greatest export good to the world’. This article then discusses to the unbalanced power relationship between gurus and disciples, finally expanding to a broader discussion of the more infamous cases of hyper-gurus and their falls from grace.​

In Ep 47 of Modi’s Mann ki Baat, which is Modi’s monthly address to the nation, he spoke in Sanskrit, for about 1 minute. He declared Sanskrit has the power to help with climate change.

This is is the translation of the text:THIS BIT IS IN SANSKRIT (1.30–2.30)

Bhagini Chinmayee, भवती संस्कृत — प्रश्न पृष्टवत्ती | Sister Chinmayee has asked a question in Sanskrit. Excellent, extraordinary. My salutations to you. On the occasion of Sanskrit week, I extend my best wishes to all countrymen.I am extremely thankful to young Chinmayee for touching upon this subject. Friends, apart from Rakshabandhan, Shravan Poornima is also celebrated as Sanskrit Day.

REST IN HINDI (2.30–7.00)congratulate all those actively involved in preserving & conserving this glorious heritage, helping it to reach out to the masses. Every language has its own significance, sanctity. India takes great pride in the fact that Tamil is the most ancient of world languages. [[NOT TRUE]] We Indians also feel proud that from Vedic times to the modern day, Sanskrit language has played a stellar role in the universal spread of knowledge.

Sanskrit language & literature encompasses a storehouse of knowledge pertaining to every facet of life. Science & technology, agriculture & health, Mathematics & Management, economy & environment, the entire spectrum has been touched upon. It is said that our Vedas have detailed reference on Mantras, on ways & means to counter the challenges of global warming (3MIN54SEC). You will be pleased to know that even today, residents of village Mattur in Shivamoga district of Karnataka use Sanskrit as their lingua franca. [[NOT EXACTLY TRUE]]

You will be astonished to know that Sanskrit is a language that possesses the capacity for infinite word formation with two thousand verb roots, 200 suffixes & 22 prefixes; coupled with compounds, the possibility of word-creation is limitless [[POTENTIALLY ANY LANGUAGE HAS LIMITLESS WORD CREATION]]. And that is why the minutest nuance of an expression or subject can be accurately described. This has been the core speciality of Sanskrit. Today, at times, in order to communicate more assertively, we tend to make use of English Quotations or even sher-o-shayari-urdu poetry. But those who are well acquainted with Sanskrit Subhashitas — epigrammatic verses, know very well that it is possible to make a crisp, precise statement, using very few words through the usage of subhashitas. And since there is a sense of geographical & cultural belonging, they are easy to understand & assimilate.

For example, in order to illustrate the significance of the Guru in one’s life, it has been saidएकमपि अक्षरमस्तु गुरु: शिष्यं प्रबोधयेr~ |प्रथिव्यां नास्ति तद- दृव्यं, यद — दत्त्वा ह्यu`.kh Hkosr~ ||

Thereby meaning, when a guru imparts even an iota of knowledge to the student, there is no material or wealth on the entire earth that the student can make use of, to repay the guru. We must abide by the same essence, the same spirit as we celebrate Teachers’ Day. Knowledge & the guru are incomparable, invaluable, priceless, On the occasion of Teachers’ Day, we remember the great philosopher, former President of India Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan ji. His birth anniversary is celebrated as Teacher’ Day across the country. I felicitate all the teachers in the country on this occasion. I also salute your sense of commitment towards science, education and students.

This is the second episode of the Yogascapes in Japan Podcast that is a result of the Yoga, Movement, and Space Conference. This event occurred during early November 2018 at the Institute of Liberal Arts at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. It was partially funded by the ILA, as well as the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. Assistance was also given by the Organization for Identity and Cultural Development.

In this episode, Dr Noemie Verdon discusses Samgati: The ethics of organizing a yoga pilgrimage to India.

The video is on the YiJ website, here. But, you can also watch it here through Youtube, below.

This is the third episode of the Yogascapes in Japan Podcast that is a result of the Yoga, Movement, and Space Conference. This event occurred during early November 2018 at the Institute of Liberal Arts at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. It was partially funded by the ILA, as well as the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. Assistance was also given by the Organization for Identity and Cultural Development.

In this episode, Therese Heinisch discusses her research on, Re-thinking yoga pedagogy.

The video is on the YiJ website, here. But, you can also watch it here through Youtube, below.

This is the second episode of the Yogascapes in Japan Podcast that is a result of the Yoga, Movement, and Space Conference. This event occurred during early November 2018 at the Institute of Liberal Arts at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. It was partially funded by the ILA, as well as the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. Assistance was also given by the Organization for Identity and Cultural Development.

In this episode, Dr Justin Stein discusses his on Yoga in early twentieth century Japan: Self-cultivation, spiritual therapies, and American influences.

The video is on the YiJ website, here. But, you can also watch it here through Youtube, below.

We are organising another conference between 09-13 July. The venue is yet to be organised, please click below for more information about the theme of the conference, submitting your abstract, registration, visas, airports, etc. Look forward to seeing you in July.

Are you curious about what comes next for YiJ? Then, please have a look at how the next project proposal is developing, at this link. Would love to know what you think. It's only a short read, PLUS there is a video!!! :-)

Edited volumes often include different topics that are challenging to review. This can be that the collected essays might be of varying levels of interest. Initially this volume, The Assimilation of Yogic Religions Through Pop Culture, edited by Paul G. Hackett, seemed very interesting and relevant. However, when the hard copy arrived, and I paid closer attention to the table of contents, I realized that most of the chapters were about television shows and comic book superheroes that I personally have very little interest in. I never watched David Lynch’s Twin Peaks; I know next to nothing about Spiderman and Batman; and the worlds of science-fiction related to Doctor Who and Star Trek are denuded -scapes within my imagination. Therefore, with a certain amount of anxiety I embarked on this review, which I expected to be dull and unfulfilling. However, it was specifically this reason that urged me to review this book, and ultimately, I am very glad that I did.Over the nine chapters that are equally distributed within three thematically oriented parts (1: Theatre and Film, 2: Television and Serials, and 3: Comic Books and Graphic Novels), the richness of these genres is discussed in such a way so as to entice exploration; either for the very first time, or to revisit them so as to see these pop cultural icons through a new lens. This is what stands out as the strength of these essays. Now, other pop cultural icons seem less complicated and, instead, the seemingly banal production of pop culture appears embedded within larger, transcultural currents than were previously considered.​It is difficult to choose a favorite or stand out chapter given that all of them, in some way, presented new material that caused deep reflection. Possibly, however, it was Adam Krug’s chapter dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Twin Peaks and its relation to Tibetan Buddhism that stands out the most. This is not to say that the other chapters were less engaging or theoretically bare. Rather, it is that this chapter allowed me to penetrate into the confusing world of Lynch’s art that was not accessible in my adolescent self while trying to watch it in the early 1990s. In similar ways to the other chapters and how they deal with their topics, Krug opens up the complicated world of the Twin Peaks reality to demonstrate how deeply enmeshed and complicated the psychology of Buddhism is within the logic of the show; how the zenith of Tibetan Buddhism’s global popularity during the 1990’s zeitgeist was a historical moment that was as much a consequence as it was a catalyst to the ways in which Buddhism was constructed within Twin Peaks; and, also, how it was globally imagined and consumed.

Each chapter reveals various characters and historical contexts involved in their creation that are utterly fascinating. This rhetorical process generally involved complicating the character beyond the two dimensions of a television screen or comic book frame, and contextualizing them within deeper transcultural discussions. This is evident in chapter 8 where Rex Barnes discusses the translocation of Spiderman into an Indian context, as Peter Parker becomes Pravitr Prabhakar (206). These nominal adaptations aside, a deeper critical analysis related to the significant misrepresentation that Indian comics use “magic” to justify superheroes’s powers, while American comics use “science,” explores the idea beyond cultural essentialism and cultural exploitation to present a compelling invitation to rethink cultural categories underlying transcriptions (214).

The review took longer to complete than expected given there were several moments in each chapter that compelled me to put the book down and search online for certain characters, series, and scenes. While the descriptions in the book around these characters and structures are more than sufficient, it is the way in which they are discussed that compelled me to explore these characters in more depth by watching, perhaps, not only the trailers of particular films mentioned, but also, on some occasions, the film in its entirety.

Inspired by the richness of discussion and insight in each chapter, even non-experts of comparative religions or non-fans of these pop-cultural icons will find interesting the insights provided into various streams of traditional religious practices and identities from exotically-othered parts of Asia which have historically played a role in shaping popular representations of Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, various strands of Hinduism—particularly Tantra—and how these continue to be borrowed, appropriated, misrepresented, filtered, or woven into the practices and imaginary fabric of global popular culture.

It is with Hackett’s closing remarks (247-48) that we find a way to appreciate the transcultural flows of knowledge embedded within popular culture. While there are many ways in which the cultural borrowing and white-washing of “yogic” religions occurs, within the commodified global consumption-scape and its increasing blending of multi-ethnic and multi-religious cultures, Hackett reminds us that acceptance of syncretic (yogic) religious sentiments relies upon traditional symbols and vocabulary being de-anchored and reset within familiar terms to the new audience. While this can be a form of epistemic violence and cultural imperialism–and can result in traditional symbols and terms being grossly divorced from their initial contexts–the less pathologically exploitative side of transcultural flows potentially leads to deeper levels of cross-cultural religious appreciation. Therefore, the strength of this book is that it demonstrates ways in which popular culture enables new audiences to engage with challenging foreign concepts in familiar and palatable ways. This, ultimately, can lead to exploring these concepts within their original settings, beyond the pop cultural context. In doing so, we learn that comics have an important role to play in the world.

About the Reviewer(s): Patrick McCartney is a JSPS postdoctoral fellow in the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies at Kyoto University, Japan.

Date of Review: January 5, 2019

About the Author(s)/Editor(s)/Translator(s): Paul G. Hackett has taught at Columbia University.

This is the first episode of the Yogascapes in Japan Podcast that is a result of the Yoga, Movement, and Space Conference. This event occurred during early November 2018 at the Institute of Liberal Arts at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. It was partially funded by the ILA, as well as the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. Assistance was also given by the Organization for Identity and Cultural Development.

In this episode, Constanza Travaglia discusses her research intentions for a future PhD project around issues related to identity and performativity in global yoga festivals.

The video is on the YiJ website, here. But, you can also watch it here through Youtube, below.